A stunning literary thriller in the tradition of Umberto Eco. The discovery of a forgotten book leads to a hunt for an elusive author who may or may not still be alive... Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the 'cemetery of lost books', a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles that have long gone out of print. To this library, a man brings his 10-year-old son Daniel one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book from the shelves and pulls out 'La Sombra del Viento' by Julian Carax. But as he grows up, several people seem inordinately interested in his find. Then, one night, as he is wandering the old streets once more, Daniel is approached by a figure who reminds him of a character from La Sombra del Viento, a character who turns out to be the devil. This man is tracking down every last copy of Carax's work in order to burn them. What begins as a case of literary curiosity turns into a race to find out the truth behind the life and death of Julian Carax and to save those he left behind. A page-turning exploration of obsession in literature and love, and the places that obsession can lead.

"Gabriel García Márquez meets Umberto Eco meets Jorge Luis Borges for a sprawling magic show." --The New York Times Book Review A New York Times Bestseller Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer’s son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author’s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Soon Daniel’s seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love. “ Anyone who enjoys novels that are scary, erotic, touching, tragic and thrilling should rush right out to the nearest bookstore and pick up The Shadow of the Wind. Really, you should.” --Michael Dirda, The Washington Post "Wonderous... masterful... The Shadow of the Wind is ultimately a love letter to literature, intended for readers as passionate about storytelling as its young hero." --Entertainment Weekly (Editor's Choice) "One gorgeous read." --Stephen King From the Trade Paperback edition.

"On a hot summer night in 1936 Olivia and Nora Atkins go for a stroll along the beach in Gaspé. They never return. When the body of one of them is washed ashore days later, the tiny community of Griffin Creek is electrified. The teenagers have been murdered. But by whom?"

ABOUT THE BOOK If you'll allow me an immediate personal tangent, I feel obligated to tell you my favorite book of all time is 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I read it in high school and came away shocked at how deeply I connected with a genre as fantastical as magical realism. Reading The Shadow of the Wind conjured memories of my first experience with 100 Years of Solitude. Both stories span generations and have a dizzying amount of characters, most of whom never meet, but all of whom are mysteriously connected by a powerful force. MEET THE AUTHOR Luke stole an English degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has been a blogger for nearly a decade and a digital editor at an ad agency for three years. Luke enjoys playing sports, reading, listening to music, trying to play songs he likes on the guitar, quickly giving up on that and playing video games, and spending quality time with his wife. Facebook: /ltrayser Twitter: @ltrayser EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK It's easy to imagine little Daniel, wide-eyed and silent, taking in the book-filled labyrinth of impossible geometry and nodding in response to his dad's question. His father lets him in on one of the Cemetery's traditions: first-time visitors choose a book. Once Daniel chooses, it will be his duty to make sure that as long as he's alive, his book is as well.He chooses The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax. He knows nothing about the book or its author, but that doesn't matter. The boy couldn't shake the feeling that it was waiting for him, and for more than 10 years. In the coming pages, Daniel's life will be in danger because of The Shadow of the Wind, so it's paramount that we are fully on board with the notion that he'd put himself in harm's way to preserve words on a page.

Prequel to the bestselling The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel's Game takes us to the turbulent Barcelona of the 1920s and the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. It's a spellbinding love story about the power of storytelling. Struggling writer David Martin makes an impossible deal with a mysterious publisher to write a book that will change people's lives.

Set at the time of the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century, “Rose of Fire” tells the story of the origins of the mysterious labyrinthine library, the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, which lies at the heart of Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s novels, The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel’s Game, and now The Prisoner of Heaven.

THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN returns to the world of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and the Sempere & Sons bookshop. It begins just before Christmas in Barcelona in 1957, one year after Daniel and Bea from THE SHADOW OF THE WIND have married. They now have a son, Julian, and are living with Daniel's father at Sempere & Sons. Fermin still works with them and is busy preparing for his wedding to Bernarda in the New Year. However something appears to be bothering him. Daniel is alone in the shop one morning when a mysterious figure with a pronounced limp enters. He spots one of their most precious volumes that is kept locked in a glass cabinet, a beautiful and unique illustrated edition of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO. Despite the fact that the stranger seems to care little for books, he wants to buy this expensive edition. Then, to Daniel's surprise, the man inscribes the book with the words 'To Fermin Romero de Torres, who came back from the dead and who holds the key to the future'. This visit leads back to a story of imprisonment, betrayal and the return of a deadly rival ...

Collect the full set of Penguin Drop Caps from A-Z: a unique series of twenty-six hardcovers featuring cover art by type superstar Jessica Hische It all begins with a letter. Fall in love with Penguin Drop Caps, a new series of twenty-six collectible and gift-worthy hardcover editions, each with a type cover showcasing a gorgeously illustrated letter of the alphabet by superstar type designer Jessica Hische, whose work has appeared everywhere from Tiffany & Co. to Wes Anderson’s film Moonrise Kingdom to Penguin’s own bestsellers Committed and Rules of Civility. A collaboration between Jessica Hische and Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, the series design encompasses foil-stamped paper-over-board cases in a rainbow-hued spectrum across all twenty-six book spines and a decorative stain on all three paper edges. Penguin Drop Caps debuts with an “A” for Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, a “B” for Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and a “C” for Willa Cather’s My Ántonia, and continues with more classics from Penguin. This set includes all twenty-six Penguin Drop Caps: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, My Ántonia by Willa Cather, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Middlemarch by George Eliot, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Native Speaker by Chang-rae Lee, Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, Five Children and It by E. Nesbit, BUtterfield 8 by John O'Hara, Swann's Way by Marcel Proust, The Greek Coffin Mystery by Ellery Queen, Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie, Cannery Row by John Steinbeck, The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wreath by Sigrid Undset, Candide by Voltaire, Leaves of Grass and Selected Poems and Prose by Walt Whitman, Sky Burial by Xinran, When You Are Old: Early Poems and Fairy Tales by W. B. Yeats, and The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

It was an unforgettable summer.... When fourteen-year-old Irene Sauvelle moves with her family to Cape House on the coast of Normandy, she's immediately taken by the beauty of the place--its expansive cliffs, coasts, and harbors. There, she meets a local boy named Ishmael, and the two soon fall in love. But a dark mystery is about to unfold, involving a reclusive toymaker who lives in a gigantic mansion filled with mechanical beings and shadows of the past. As strange lights shine through the fog surrounding a small, barren island, Irene's younger brother dreams of a dark creature hidden deep in the forest. And when a young girl is found murdered, her body at the end of a path torn through the woods by a monstrous, inhuman force, Irene and Ishmael wonder--has a demonic presence been unleashed on the inhabitants of Cape House? Together, they'll have to survive the most terrifying summer of their lives, as they try to piece together the many mysteries and secrets hidden in a town torn apart by tragedy, amidst a labyrinth of lights and shadows.

'Fifteen years on, the remembrance of that day has returned to me. I have seen that boy wandering through the mist of the railway station, and the name of Marina has flared up again like a fresh wound. We all have a secret buried under lock and key in the attic of our soul. This is mine...' In May 1980, 15-year-old Óscar Drai suddenly vanishes from his boarding school in the old quarter of Barcelona. For seven days and nights no one knows his whereabouts... His story begins in the heart of old Barcelona, when he meets Marina and her father German Blau, a portrait painter. Marina takes Óscar to a cemetery to watch a macabre ritual that occurs on the fourth Sunday of each month. At 10 a.m. precisely a coach pulled by black horses appears. From it descends a woman dressed in black, her face shrouded, wearing gloves, holding a single rose. She walks over to a gravestone that bears no name, only the mysterious emblem of a black butterfly with open wings. When Óscar and Marina decide to follow her they begin a journey that will take them to the heights of a forgotten, post-war Barcelona, a world of aristocrats and actresses, inventors and tycoons; and a dark secret that lies waiting in the mysterious labyrinth beneath the city streets. Carlos Ruiz Zafón was born in Barcelona and is the author of seven novels including THE SHADOW OF THE WIND. He is one of the world's most read and best-loved writers. His work has been translated into more than 40 languages and published around the world, garnering numerous international prizes and reaching millions of readers. He divides his time between Barcelona and Los Angeles.

A New York Times Bestseller The Gargoyle: the mesmerizing story of one man's descent into personal hell and his quest for salvation. On a dark road in the middle of the night, a car plunges into a ravine. The driver survives the crash, but his injuries confine him to a hospital burn unit. There the mysterious Marianne Engel, a sculptress of grotesques, enters his life. She insists they were lovers in medieval Germany, when he was a mercenary and she was a scribe in the monastery of Engelthal. As she spins the story of their past lives together, the man's disbelief falters; soon, even the impossible can no longer be dismissed. From the Trade Paperback edition.

In this book, we have hand-picked the most sophisticated, unanticipated, absorbing (if not at times crackpot!), original and musing book reviews of "The Shadow of the Wind." Don't say we didn't warn you: these reviews are known to shock with their unconventionality or intimacy. Some may be startled by their biting sincerity; others may be spellbound by their unbridled flights of fantasy. Don't buy this book if: 1. You don't have nerves of steel. 2. You expect to get pregnant in the next five minutes. 3. You've heard it all.